Sunday bread, home-made

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S is for the smell of the Sunday loaves.
The dark, heavy, healthy bread is so delicious.
The nuns bake home-made bread only for Sundays and holidays.

(I'm volunteering right now at a contemplative monastic community of sisters from various Reformed churches.  The Community of Grandchamp is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.)
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday.)
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A glass of wine, a loaf of bread . . .

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Part of our Sabbath Eve dinner at Elma hotel--challah bread and some of the wine that you saw in the previous post.

The long dinner table is made of shiny recycled metal. 

Breaking the fast by breaking bread

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Here in Jerusalem Yom Kippur ended at 6:07 pm.
As  the 26-hour no-food no-water fast came to an end, all thoughts turned toward food and drink.

Fortunately, on my last visit to the shuk (Mahane Yehuda market), I stocked up on special bread at the tiny bakery on Jaffa Street.

The growing line of customers waited patiently and with understanding  as dark smoke started escaping from the oven and the baker/seller opened the door and dashed inside.
He quickly peeled the round  Bukharan bread from the ceiling and brought out a stack.

Then he took some kind of long, flat, stiff breads off the sides of the oven. (Next time I'll ask what they are called.)
It is a mystery to me how the loaves just stick to the oven and don't fall.
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Breaking bread together

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Bread--before and after.

A bunch of B words for ABC Wednesday.



Bread being baked by a Bedouin.

Back in 2008 a dozen Jewish Israelis took part in a 5-day immersion course in spoken Arabic.
Part of each day we studied in class.
Each of us was hosted by a different family.
It was a blessed being together.

Click here to see more pictures of my time in the village of Darajat, down south in the Negev desert.
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41st Psalm

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For the weekly PsalmChallenge that Robert Geiss in Athens challenges us with, here is my illustrated Psalm 41.


1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

Blessed is he who considers the poor! The LORD delivers him in the day of trouble; 2 the LORD protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; thou dost not give him up to the will of his enemies.


3 The LORD sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness thou healest all his infirmities.
4 As for me, I said, "O LORD, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against thee!"

5 My enemies say of me in malice: "When will he die, and his name perish?"

6 And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words, while his heart gathers mischief; when he goes out, he tells it abroad. 7 All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me. 8 They say, "A deadly thing has fastened upon him; he will not rise again from where he lies."
9 Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
10 But do thou, O LORD, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may requite them! 11 By this I know that thou art pleased with me, in that my enemy has not triumphed over me. 12 But thou hast upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in thy presence for ever.

13 Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen. .
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This week I used the Revised Standard Version translation.
The Hebrew original and a different English translation are here.
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In Jewish usage the Book of Psalms is divided, after the analogy of the Pentateuch, into five books, each closing with a doxology or benediction.

In his study of Psalm 41 Rabbi Segal says this:

"The last verse is widely understood to conclude the first book of Psalms. Each of the first four books ends with such a doxology (statement of praise). . . .
'Amen' (last verse) is a term of confirmation ('verily, truly').
Although it appears elsewhere in the Bible, in Psalms it is found exclusively in the doxologies that end the first four books (Psalms 41, 72, 89, and 106)."

PHOTOS:
1. An old synagogue door with an arrow pointing to the slot through which you can give anonymous charity (tsdaka).
2. An old photo (exhibited at the new Shaare Zedek) shows windows of the old Shaare Zedek hospital on Jaffa Road covered by wooden beams for protection against the constant shelling during the War of Independence, 1948.
3. A nameless grave in Tel Aviv's historic Trumpeldor cemetery. The marker says only "Po nikbar galmud" meaning something like "Here lies someone who had no one."
During Turkish times (i.e. before 1917) a plague killed so many that no one knew all the names of the dead.
4. Kneading dough for a monastery's daily bread.
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Sesame Street?

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Any food with sesame on it is good in my book.

The unusual arrangement of the oblong sesame-covered bagelach caught my eye at this basta (food stand) at Shuk Mahane Yehuda market.

The yellow paper on the wall tells us what time Shabbat began last Friday.
Just a few minutes after 6 p.m.
It is still hot in Israel and it feels like summer still, but the days are getting shorter and shorter--a sure sign of autumn.

From manna to challah

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Tomorrow it will be time to stock up from the stacked up loaves of challah.

You can see signs of their braided shape on the fallen paper.

If you like challah with sesame seeds, enlarge the photo.

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At the Sabbath table two challot are held together and the Hamotsi bread blessing is said over both.

This is in remembrance of our 40 years in the desert when each morning the Israelites found manna on the ground, encased in two layers of dew to preserve its freshness.

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But on Saturday, the Holy Sabbath day, no manna fell from heaven.

Instead, the people would gather a double portion on Friday.

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Moses explains this in Exodus 16:22-26.

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That's My World -- matza

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Goodbye bread.
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Hello matza.
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Pesach begins this evening.
No bread for us, or any food with leavening, for the seven days of Passover.
Jews who observe the biur chamtetz ritual burned their last remaining morsels of bread in little bonfires this morning.
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For more fun posts about matza and for the deeper meaning of the "bread of affliction," you are welcome to click on my label MATZA.
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I'm getting ready to take the last bus from my village up to Jerusalem for the seder meal.
See ya later. Chag sameach--happy holiday!
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Giving thanks

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A blessed Thanksgiving to all the Americans!
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In whatever country we are, let us give thanks for the food on our table and for the friends at the table.
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Puffy pita

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A good job to have in winter.


Hot pita falling from the conveyor belt at a bakery in Shuk Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem's huge open air market.

For a second the pitot are still puffed up with steam; then quickly they become flat and normal.
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Advent

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Latin: com- means "with" and pān(is) means "bread."
So literally, COMPANIONS are those with whom we break bread.
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A blessed second Sunday of Advent to all my Christian friends.
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Blessing the bread

Welcoming the Friday evening Sabbath at a friend's house. She has the custom of making a communal blessing over the challah.


Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha-olam
Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe

hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz. (Amein).
who brings forth bread from the earth.
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Shabbat shalom, Sabbath peace, to you and all.

Not by bread alone

This week's Torah reading (parashat hashavua) contains the famous statement in Deuteronomy 8:3b that reminds us of the true source of human sustenance:

". . . man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

כִּי לֹא עַל-הַלֶּחֶם לְבַדּוֹ יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם--כִּי עַל-כָּל-מוֹצָא פִי-יְהוָה, יִחְיֶה הָאָדָם

Shabbat shalom, Sabbath peace, to you.
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A bevy of Bs

Bagels in the Holy City.
Bright balconies of an old guesthouse in Tiberias.

Basalt church and basalt rocks on the seashore of the receding Sea of Galilee.

Blogger behind bars? Bwahaha, no, it is just the cloister of the . . .

Benedictine Monastery in Tabgha.

Balancing bear in the Biblical Zoo, Jerusalem.

Boy (my beloved) on a burnished bear at the Biblical Zoo.

Braille. Click to make this bigger and see that the third sign in this forest picnic place is in braille!

Bucks, aka billy goats, at a goat cheese dairy farm in the Jerusalem Hills.

Big bales (in Hebrew balot) are the way to transport material in construction and archaeology.

Just-baked bread for the HaMotsi bread blessing on our Jewish Shabbat evening.

And for the Christians, the Blessed Sacrament for the Feast of the Multiplication of Fishes and Loaves. On the ancient mosaic floor of the church at Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee.

To see what other bloggers are offering up for the letter B this ABC Wednesday please visit http://wednesdayabc.blogspot.com/ or http://mrsnesbittsplace.blogspot.com/.

Goodbye to bread

Enjoy it while you can. From this Friday until the end of next week (most) Jews will not be tasting any bread at all.
Instead, during the whole week of Passover we will eat "the bread of affliction," matza.
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Here you see the huge Angel Bakeries--the silos, flour mill, production lines.
Angel distributes its loaves and rolls all over the country and also supplies the prisons and the Israel Defense Force.
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